Operator exhaustion eyed in Chicago derailment

A Chicago Transit Authority train car rests on an escalator at the O'Hare Airport station after it derailed early Monday.

A Chicago Transit Authority train car rests on an escalator at the...

CHICAGO — The operator of a train that jumped the tracks and scaled an escalator at one of the nation's busiest airports, injuring 32 people early Monday, may have dozed off, a union leader said.

The operator told Amalgamated Transit Union Local 308 President Robert Kelly that she had worked a lot of overtime recently and was “extremely tired” when the train derailed, Kelly said at a news conference.

The derailment happened just before 3 a.m. Monday at the end of the Chicago Transit Authority's Blue Line at O'Hare International Airport. No one suffered life-threatening injuries.

Earlier, National Transportation Safety Board official Tim DePaepe said investigators hadn't drawn any conclusions about the crash's cause, but were looking into whether faulty brakes, signals or human error were factors.

The still-hospitalized operator will be interviewed, DePaepe said, adding that investigators would examine her routine over the past few days.

The timing of the derailment helped avoid an enormous disaster, as the underground Blue Line station usually is packed with travelers.

Monday's accident occurred almost six months after an unoccupied Blue Line train rumbled down a track for nearly a mile and struck another train head-on at the other end of the line last September. Dozens were hurt in that incident.

Investigators will review video footage from a camera in the station and one that was mounted on the front of the train, DePaepe said. The train will remain at the scene until the NTSB has finished some of its work.